BEAUMONT HAMEL TOUR

Hello Boys,

Our tour to Beaumont Hamel (BH) is nearing its final stages. Old boys and significant others are signing up to go over to France from May 17-25. The highlight of the tour will be the installation and dedication of the Gerry Squires painting to commemorate those boys who died at that battle. There is still some room on the bus so please get in contact with me as soon as possible. My email is at the end of this blog.

The tour will begin in Paris and then move to many of the sites where Newfoundlanders fought during WWI. Beaumont Hamel will be our focus as there is a museum there that displays artifacts of our boys who made the supreme sacrifice there.

In an earlier blog I posted the complete itinerary so just look at the left navigation area and click on the tour title.

I sometimes wonder if doing this kind of thing is important in peoples' lives. It is important to remember those who have laid down their most precious gift, their life, so that others might live in freedom and peace. But as we go about our daily lives we do not think of those who made this sacrifice. Thus it is important that we focus on it at least once in a while through the year.

As I have been working in our archive during the past three years you come to realize that these boys were as we are now. You can see them in various sports pictures at the college. You imagine you know them. You know that they did the same things as we do today, eat breakfast, dress for school, miss homework, upset their parents and teachers and generally behave as boys do although at a different time.

Then came the time when many of them decided to go to war, a war that many at the time thought would be over in a month or so. We know it wasn't and many of them died well into the conflict. Many looked upon it as a grand adventure and could not wait to get into the thick of things. Many lied about their age although would they not have had to produce a birth certificate at enlistment? That's the story though. They badly wanted to have an adventure and war was their ticket to that excitement.

Now we remember their sacrifice and in May we will remember the sacrifice of a special few-Old Feildians. There were seven or eight killed outright at Beaumont Hamel on that fateful day, July 1, 1916 and about 55 others during the war itself. Almost 300 Old Feildians fought in that war. Of that number about sixty were killed. That's 1 in 5 who went over did not come back. If you include all those who went over from Newfoundland it is easy to see that for such a small place we made a significant contribution.

I suppose when you go to war you must think that there is a possibility of being killed albeit an adventurous time. But in the face of that many of our boys left hearth and home to fight in foreign climes.

And so we remember them. We must continue to remember even though the event is long ago. We must pass on to the next generation the importance of remembering. We must never forget them.